Power Seat Issues
 

I just bought this '88 Cherokee, and the controls only work in one direction. forward and up. Is there some way to manually drop the seat?

Don't know about manually "winding" the seat down, but the first thing I would do is pull out the seat and base and check the whole base for obstructions. Coins, paper clips and other crap find there way into the tracks and mechanisms and are notorious for jamming up seat movement.

I will try that immediately.

We fixed it! We pulled the seat out and couldn't find anything blocking the track, sprayed lubricant around, decided that maybe the controls were the culprit. Without thinking about it much, I sprayed WD40 into the center joy stick, which is the control that brings the seat forward and up but wasn't taking it back and down, and instantly the seat started moving correctly. Now, I expect some sympathy, or at least empathy, because I proclaim to my Eldest Son, "That's it! The problem was in the controls! Something must have been gooped up."

"Well, that might be it," the Eldest, who looks like a nineteen-year-old Hoss Cartwright, countered.

"What'y'mean, 'that might be it'! I sprayed the controls with a lubricant, and just like that, the seat is going in all directions."

"Well, you haven't tried every other possible solution or combination of solutions to see if other actions might have fixed the problem, so we don't know for a fact that this was the actual solution, only that the problem appears to be resolved after spraying WD40 into the controls."

"Well, then, what else could have fixed the problem!?!?"

"I have no idea, only that this might, maybe even probably is, the solution, but it's not absolutely for sure the solution."

"Would you have me continue on with more possible solutions to determine for a fact that gooped-up controls lubricated by WD40 is the one and only possible solution?"

"Actually, we can't. The seat functions now, so there's no way of testing any other theories. Besides, Mom said we had to have this all fixed before school starts again."

He also informs me that he doesn't consider himself a 'Car Guy', but a 'Jeep Guy', and has determined he wants to know everything there is to know about his New-To-Him Jeep. So I can't kill him.

My dad would have looked at this and laughed his butt off. It sounds like how he describes me on occasion. I have outgrown this (mostly) hahahaha. Good info to know in case I get a stuck power driver seat!!

Thing is, technically, he's right if you're adhering to Western Logic, mathematical, Scientific Method definitions of a solution. What the vast majority soaked in grease to our armpits operate by is Empirical Evidence. We work on a problem until the symptoms cease. That doesn't satisfy the logicians of the world, and I suppose the world would be a better place if we did look for the most absolute answer to the problem. But who has the time? If we are curious, we might kick around to see what caused the symptom to keep it from reoccurring. You find a frayed wire that's grounding out. You clean it up and wrap it in electrical tape, but you might look around and figure out why the wire got frayed in the first place. Still, who has the time to take it that far, but someone who doesn't actually do it, but hypothesizes as they watch on.